Copyright Challenges in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Navigating New Frontiers

August 27, 2025
admin
Uncategorized

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the creative sector with the production of music, art, and literature at heretofore unprecedented levels. However, the technology raises intricate copyright questions that include determining authorship and the question of data scraping used in AI training. In India, copyright in creative works is governed by the Copyright Act of 1957; however, the act, intended for human authors, cannot cope with the realities of AI-generated works. This paper discusses the existing copyright issues in the era of AI, with focus on authorship, fair use, and enforcement, and drawing from judicial precedents and global experiences to suggest viable solutions in addressing the creative economy of India.

Copyright Problem with AI

Authorship of AI-Generated Works

In the Copyright Act, 1957, under Section 2(d), authorship can only belong to a human, and therefore, things created by AI algorithms find themselves in a legal gray area. example Anvita Singh v. Union of India (2023), the Delhi High Court had to rule on whether an AI-generated painting should receive copyright protection and ruled against it because no human creator can be identified. This problem is not only local as cases such as Naruto v. In the U.S., Slater (2018) have also rejected the possibility of animals as authors to a piece of work to strengthen the argument that non-human entities, including AI, cannot be the owners of a copyright. This begs the question of who should be the author; the programmer, the user, or AI itself? This lack of clarity is killing innovation in the fast-developing AI-based creative industry in India.

Data Retrieval and Training Data Collections

AI models depend on vast datasets, often scraped from copyrighted materials without proper permission. In the case of Authors Guild v. Google (2015), an American court was on the verge of affirming the fair use of Google Books scanning, but India’s fair dealing provisions under Section 52 are quite limited. The Bombay High Court’s ruling in Human of Bombay (2022) restricted unauthorized scraping of content, yet there’s no specific law governing AI training datasets. This imposes a clash between the owner of copyright and the AI developers, with creators fearing to lose the control of their works. Transformative Use and Fair Use Its reusage of or remix of older works characteristics change the fair dealing provisions through the reavailability and reuse of past works via AI.Super Cassettes Industries has endorsed transformative use as a defense (MySpace 2011), yet the distinction diminishes in the case of AI remixes. AI songwriters who create Melodies which are similar to earlier melodies will cause infringement lawsuits as has happened in T-Series (2023). The lack of well-structured guidelines that list transformative use in instances related to AI puts the creators and platforms at risk of law suits. Indian Regulatory Structure Under the section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957, original literary, artistic, musical, and cinematographic works are being protecting, but the uses of AI content expand beyond the present limitations of that Act. The infringement is covered in section 51, but it is unclear how to apply it to AI platforms because they are decentralized. The Digital Consumers Association case against. The problem of deceptive digital content is actually being addressed in E-commerce Platforms (2023) but the problem of AI such as algorithmic infringement has not been comprehensively discussed. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, indirectly supports copyright enforcement by penalizing misleading digital ads, but its effectiveness is somewhat limited.

Judicial progress tends to be slow and careful. In the case of Krishna Kumar v. State (2023), the Madras High Court suggested amending the Copyright Act to include provisions for AI-generated works, highlighting the need for legal adaptation in this evolving landscape; however, no legislative step in this regard has followed. Sources of enforcement are also discouraged by the absence of the dedicated intellectual property courts, and excessive cost of litigation (especially to an individual creator). Global Solutions and Global Perspectives Global Strategies The EU Copyright Directive (2019/790) mandates the licensing of data scraping and India should apply the same to its AI training datasets. U.S. fair use law, in the way it has evolved through Oracle v. Google (2021), offers room to transformative AI works but the more strict fair dealing provisions of India have to be broadened. Balancing innovation and rights of the creator, an example possibility is in Japan, where using data to train AI is legal as long as it is on a non-commercial basis, through the Copyright Act.

Suggested Modifications

Amending the Copyright Act to permit AI authorship would confer ownership, rights vesting in the user or developer on the basis of creative contribution. A statutory license framework, adopted from the EU, would provide effect to regulation of data scraping, fair use remuneration to authors. Section 52 would be amended to cover transformative AI works to keep pace with foreign fair use developments. The CCPA would coordinate with the Copyright Office to track AI-generated works using tools such as ASCI’s “NINA” for real-time use in detection of infringement.

Technology-Based Solutions – Blockchain copyright registries can authenticate original works, reducing controversy over AI-generated work. India’s 2020 National Blockchain Framework can be used to deal with IP. AI-driven infringement detection platforms, such as YouTube’s Content ID system, can accelerate enforcement but must be invested in infrastructure.

The frontier between copyright and AI abounds in novel challenges, which can range in copyright ownership disputes to unauthorized data extraction. The Copyright Act of India,1957 needs to be redefined to the content that is produced by AI since the legal attempts are made at the judicial level, such as Anvita Singh v. Union of India identify deficiencies. Reform can be based on international best practices of regimes such as the EU regime of licensing and Japan of flexible provisions. Through the revision of the Act India will be able to embrace technology and aid coordination among the regulatory institutions hence bridging the gap between creativity and the rights of the creator. Since AI changes the concept of creativity, a robust regime of copyright will enable the creative economy of India to succeed in the digital era.

Author: Amrita Pradhan, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to [email protected] or at IIPRD.

References